Do Schools Kill Creativity?

"A teacher's purpose is not to create students in their own image, but to develop students who can create their own image."

Author Unknown

In the video "Do Schools Kill Creativity", Ken Robinson makes a vital point about the unpredictability of the future. Teachers are given the immense responsibility of preparing students for a future we simply cannot grasp. If the education system continues to insist on a hierarchy of teaching language, mathematics, science and so on, the whole being is not being educated and therefore, teachers have failed to truly teach students.

I agree with Ken Robinson when he says that the education system is predicated on university exam entrances. Absolutely! Growing up, that was the main message in school-"this will prepare you for university!" I remember how I would feel absolutely nauseated as I heard those words over and over as a child. For one, I grew up in a single-parent home...do you think there was money set aside for me to attend university? Not on your life. I always knew at a young age that attending university would be a struggle for me in the way of financial matters. I wish someone had said to me "Tiffany, the world is yours to behold. You can be a musician, you can be an artist, you can be a teacher." Yet, my "world to behold" was already set for me and everyone else, regardless-university. What pressure!

Ken Robinson is right. Degrees aren't worth anything. All too often you hear, "Oh, I'm just working here until I can find a job", "There are no jobs in my field." Sure, I realize that that happens but how many of those people do you think should have done something different, something meaningful with their lives? I bet a whole lot.

Teachers are killing student's creativity when we force each and every student to learn in the same way; when students are subjected to pen and paper assessment and when we place too much importance on one subject and not enough importance on the other. Teachers are creating students in their own image. Students should be given the tools to become critical thinkers; to question what it is they are being taught so that they can dictate their own lives. Why can't the child who loves to dance tell a story through motion, why can't the child who loves to act improvise a historical play, why can't the child who loves to draw, draw a picture of a thousand words? Why must the child who loves to play the piano be encouraged to do so only as a past time? Why must the child in science write a response to everything when she can perform all kinds of experiments? Why must a child show his workings in math when you as a teacher can see that he has extraordinary mental math skills?

Mary Stordy's words have truly made me reflect on what it means to be a teacher. "Every child has a strength and it is our responsibility as teachers to draw from and make prominent that strength in every child, not squander it." If intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct, the education system needs to be changed so that teachers can enable students to grow into creativity and not out of it.